On 1 August, Gökçe Önal has started her PhD research entitled 'Networks of Flux'.
Setting out on the manifold extents of transportation technologies and the realms within which they operate, both physical and virtual, this research aims to undertake an analysis of the perceptual landscapes that emerge upon the contemporary experience of urban flow. While mechanisms of urban movement substantially operate on a vehicle-based flux of networks, the virtual realm constructs a distinct set of reality and an array of infinite actions. The mobilized gaze, respectively, has by far transcended the extents of the human scale and maintains a rapid course of transformation.
Of specific interest for this research is the set of visual codes and the emergent city image intrinsic to the erratic dimension of the urban form, as the study aims to develop the necessary tools in translating this complexity into a viable array of vocabulary. Constituting the site of inquiry are thus urban spaces of continual travel or flux which incorporate multiple forms of perception and inscriptions of meaning – or namely ‘viatopias [‘via’- route and top(os) – a place]’. Here, urban travel is treated as a visual landscape by means of which movement itself is elaborated as a condition of border. The gazing-subject is, accordingly, attributed a critical degree of significance in responding to this problem: dwelling on the analogy of the human gaze with that of the camera lens, unfolding of the contemporary urban flux with reference to the pertinent filmic techniques is believed to contribute to the construction of the accurate analytical tools in the process.
